I saw a Paula Rego triptych in the flesh which was really exciting as I’ve loved her since I was twelve. The first time I visited Margate I went to the Turner to the Wasteland exhibition. I’ve got my cards in the Turner Gallery now, which I’m really quite proud of. I’ve created a lot of new work for Rattycatcat and have started a secondary design company Little Plover which incorporates two of my favourite things, design and wildlife. It’s been really productive and having a work room overlooking the sea is really quite something. It’s not native and therefore I am not interested, but it may well be a first record for Brighton and I am actually quite pleased with that.īeing here has allowed me to spend time on my work and to really get used to being in my own company for long periods of time. LASTLY, in non gall-related news and back to Dyke Road Park, I spotted an interestingly chomped leaf and, after conferring with my friend and nature mentor Graeme Lyons, found out that it was an Elm Zig-Zag Sawfly, and that we were very lucky to see the grub still attached to the zig-zag chomp. Most of the adults are female and lay fertile eggs without mating – males of this species are very rare. Each gall houses several grubs which feed on the internal gall tissues over winter and emerge as adults in the spring. It is caused by the gall wasp Dipoloepis rosae and develops on wild roses, mostly on the stem. This absolute banger of a gall is a Robin’s Pincushion: This one isn’t from Dyke Road Park, but from a site near Blackstone in Sussex. I mean, it’s only got 63 confirmed records. This is a mite that will undoubtedly be affected by Dutch Elm disease (which, by the way, comes from North America and is actually named after the country which did the research on it) which is a bit sad, as I feel like the under-recording of galls will mean that Aceria campestricola will be a silent victim. The pimples are a light green but redden when exposed to sunlight. Nearly finished – the next was found on Elm, Aceria campestricola is a mite that overwinters in the bark crevices of the Elm before attacking the leaves as soon as they open in the spring. Funny, I’ve walked underneath it a hundred times and never looked up. This was a gall I was hoping to see as it’s so easy to identify, and I did do a little hop when I saw it. The galls start off as clumps of buds and then, once the fungus starts to lose hold on the host (sometimes after several years), the buds grow into the shoots you can see in these photographs. This gall can be caused by a number of organisms but the most common on Birch is the fungus Taphrina betulina. These particular clumps are on Birch but it can also be found on Hornbeam, Gean or Wild Cherry. Witches Brooms! They look like birds nests, but they’re actually bunches of stunted sticks. I would assume it’s simply under-recorded. I am more than under-qualifed to say why, but it’s a nice little nugget and would very much like to find out.
Interestingly, the NBN Atlas shows that there are many records of this fungus in the South, but next to none in Cornwall or Wales. It creates spores which protrude from the blisters on the underside of Pear leaves (pictured) which become airborne and infect the twigs and branches of Juniper. The first find was not a gall, but a rust fungus – Gymnosporangium sabinae – which affects Pears and Junipers, both of which it needs to complete its life cycle, using Juniper as its winter host and Pear in the summer. Today I travelled a grand total of 0.6km up the end of my road to Dyke Road Park in Brighton for a spot of galling, and it was extremely successful. I have found them to be a lovely addition to birdwatching – particularly this time of year – as they’re an extra little nugget to keep an eye out for. Created by the invader modifying the growth pattern of the host to suit their needs, their purpose is to provide shelter and food for the invading organism.’ John Wright, the author of A Natural History of the Hedgerow describes galls really well: ‘Galls can be formed by insects, bacteria, fungi, nematode worls and even other plants, and are one of the most remarkable features of the natural world. I call the act of going out and looking on plants to see if there are any tenants on them ‘galling’.
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